Los Angeles daily herald., 1887-02-15
GRAIN GROWING.
Mesa Farming Of Cereals
in Southern California.
A LESSON OF THE LATE RAINS.
The Methods Pursued by the Most
Successful Grangers-Changes
Being Brought About.

Successful Grangers-Changes
Being Brought About.
The time is not long passed whei
grain growing in Los Angeles and th'
other counties of Southern Californi,
would, if proposed. have been regarded
as among the most chimerieal of pro
iects. The few who began the enter
prise made their first experiments in 9
very doubling mood. When once il
proved successful many followed in the
path of the bold adventurers. But
owing to the way in which the land;
were at that time held, this was done
for the most part in large tracts. II
carly days only irrigabls and moist
lands were supposed to have any special
value. Tho higher mesas unprovided
with water for irrigation wero looked
upon as useless excepting in rainy sea-
sons, when they could be pastured with
sheep or cattle. Hence being held in
light esteem and sold at low prices, they
were owned in very extensive tracts for
grazing purposes. When the cultiva.
tion of wheat, barley and other cereals
was shown 10 be possible, those who
held these immense ranches went into
the new business on . large scale. 1t
has been, and is no unusual thing in this
county for one man to seed 10000 acres
to grain. The methcd of doing this is
to have great band Of about 100 horses,
and gang plows which turn under six,
eight and ten burrows at clip. Several
of those now engaged in this business
have facilities for turning up 250 acres
of ground in day. In this process
there are two accompanying results
the blowing is very shallow, and the
seed must be turned under by the plow.
The seed is scattered by means of a
s'seeder" in front of the shares of the
plow. In order to get these wide areas
plowed and seeded it is usual to begin
operations as early as possible in tae
fall, and to plow great deal of land
"dry"-that is before the winter rains
come. An effort has been made hereto.
fore to get all the seed in tefore the end
OF February.
This modus operandi has worked like
q charm on virgin soils, and in seasons
when the rain falls at the proper time to
be entirely favorable to such process.
This favorable dispensation in the mat.
ter of rain, would require a downpour
in November or December, and then
more or less approximation to continuity
In the precipitation during the entire
winter. Should there come long hiatus
at any part of the season the early sown
grain suffers. The early rains cause the
seed to germinate. The hot spells sure
to come any time during the winter
forces the plant, aud then follows the
drought, perhaps cold and at rare inter
walls the worst thing of al,-the desi.
eating north winds that sap the vitality
out Of all living things. vegetable or
animal. Then the early sown grain on
the mesa lands is disastrous failure
But with the large ranches ruling in
this region this result is inevitable, be-
cause on these wide areas no change can
be made.
There have been already begun cer-
tain notifications OF the policy outlined
above. In few cases grain growers
have learned to summer fallow half the
area they usually devote to that pur-
pose. The advantages are manifold. In
the first place many think they get more
grain in the course of five years by crop
ing half the land and allowing the
moiety to lie fallow each alternate year,
than in harvesting where all the land is
cropped every season. This comes partly
from the benefit accruing to the ground
from the rest it gets. There is also an
advantage in that. with half as much
winter plowing to do, the popularity Of
any particular season can be followed
more closely than when there is more
work to perform. Thus, If the early
part of the year is very wet large seed
ing may be done; whereas, if the rains
hold off very late the work of blowing
may be postponed till well along in the
year. Then there is less land to go over
in the summer with the headers, and
thus much labor and expense is saved.
Another change which farmers have
made of late years is to continue the
work of seeding much later into the
season. This is lesson quite recently
learned by the great majo;ity of grain
growers. 1t has been impressed upon
the minds of the graugers by the fact
that the rains have fallen until well into
March and April, with showers even into
May. This last element in the problem
recalls general principle in the seasons
of Southern California. The rainy sea.
son here is usually divided into two dis.
tinct portions. The early rains come
any time between the middle of No.
vember-a heavy downpour earlier
is accounted more or less abnor-
NAL and the end of December.
Then there is usually hiatus OF
dry weather which probably would
be found more generally in the month OF
January than at any other period of the
again. usually with very heavy precipi-
taiions in February or March, tspering
off into showers iu April, which some.
times extend into May. Now dry
seasons are much more frequently found
to occur in their deficiency of moisture
as to those early rains than as to the
later ones. The wise farmers who have
observed this phenomenon laugh when
they hear the croakers begin to COM
plain of dry season before New Years
day. They go on with their work, rain
or shine. As they say, all We can lose
is the wages of the men, and the seed
The teams are better at work than idle.
When the sky looks very brassy and
the season is we'll advanced, sometimes
these wisely venturesome farmers merely
plow the land, and do not put the seed
in. Then they watch the weather, and
at the first sign of cloud seen, they put
all hands at the seeding machines and
the harrows. A week ago last Friday,
one of the most astute of these grain
growers, and one who never croaks and
never let's up in the work of preparing
the ground, when he saw the sky
getting dark, put on all hands at work,
and before the downpour was on
he had 1000 acres Of grain har.
.ou,ad IN raadv IN catch avery hit 4 4